


after until before

by orphan_account



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-03
Updated: 2010-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:46:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Johnny had to quit skating after an accident. Summer of 2006.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Poem by Mark Halliday**
> 
> (The term of endearment of "ange" I used for Johnny seems to be the name of a group of fans around Johnny; the incident was not intentional. I heard Stéphane say it in an interview and thought his pronounciation of it is lovely and that Johnny would like it.)

_Before you were you,  
before your bicycle appeared under the street-lamp,  
before you met me at the airport in a corduroy jacket,_

It's a chance meeting.

He's twenty-two and looking, just looking, because he can't help it, even after all that time, after three years of heart-ache and longing and dreaming and becoming what he always wanted to be, a wish inside an eggshell. He still can't get over the fact that this, this wonderful swirling of limbs and graceful sliding was his calling and whatever he's achieved just isn't enough for his heart.

Paris, France. Paris is the answer, everyone said, and he packed up his bags and went, because why not? There has never been any stopping Johnny Weir.

Fashion's high is Paris, and that is what he's after.

But that is not what he's sitting by the ice rink for, certainly, because while he could design costumes for other figure skaters, the thought alone breaks his heart faster than a train rolling over his chest at high speed.

And then, there's him, and Johnny's met Brian Joubert before, but not really. He wonders what the four-time French national champion is doing in Paris at this time of the year. Spring's just about to blossom into summer.

Johnny hates summer. He lives for thunderstorms and sudden snow showers on his tongue.

He turns away, watches the figure skaters a bit longer, there's no one around who really catches his attention, there's just people who keep to the boards, teenagers who fool around with speed, one or two guys spinning - or trying to. He wants to leave, but his muscles don't twitch, not until later.

What he doesn't expect is a hand on his back when he straightens from his hunched position and stands up to leave, finally. Johnny looks up and into Brian's sunny smile. The other boy's dressed well, tight black top and black jeans that hug his butt in a very provocative way. His green eyes are sparkling with pleasure.

"What are you doing in Paris?" he asks in French, like they've known each other for years.

They haven't. Johnny frowns. "Do I know you?" His French is marginally better than it was when he arrived early spring, and somehow it's harder for him to learn than Russian ever was; but he has no problem doing small-talk. It's his fellow students he isn't quite able to follow just yet.

"Brian," Brian reminds him, and though he doesn't seem fazed by the fact that Johnny pretends to not know him, his smile gets a little cooler. "Brian Joubert. We skated together once or twice, I think, back when -"

"Did we?" Johnny interrupts, gives him a smooth smile in return. "I must have forgotten; but seeing as there were always millions of other skaters around whenever I skated, that shouldn't be too surprising..." He doesn't want to be hurtful, but it pains him to see someone who succeeded when he himself crashed and burned. By now, he's just biting back whenever he can.

Brian's smile vanishes completely. "I thought..." he mutters.

Johnny rolls his eyes, and the hand is long off his back, but he knows deep inside he wants the heat of another person's touch again. It's been months. "You thought wrong," he replies, not quite harsh this time, giving away a little bit of his heartbreak, to make it easier on them both.

He's _watching_ people skate from the stands. That should be answer enough for Brian.

 _before you agreed to hold my five ballpoint pens  
while I ran to play touch football,  
before your wet hair nearly touched the piano keys_

He answers his cell out of habit, without even checking the caller ID, because nobody knows his number except the people he wants to call him, at whatever time. He's going through Jil Sander's leather coats on Avenue Montaigne – not that he can afford it, but he can certainly _look_ \- and a woman in her late fifties gives him a nasty glare when he doesn't turn the jingly ringtone - Pulp's "We are the Boyz" – off immediately.

"Yeah?"

"You can be a real ass sometimes," Stéphane says and Johnny can hear the eyeroll in his words. Stéphane speaks French, of course, to help Johnny along with his language problem (the fact that he knows it turns Johnny on doesn't feature into the equation at all), and he uses the French word for donkey, which Johnny finds very endearing.

"What did I do?" he asks and leaves the coats. Nothing new there, he's seen it all before.

"He was just trying to be nice, you know?"

"What? Oh, you mean… hey, wait, why do you know about that? And why are you calling me about it, anyway, I was just my usual charming self; it's not like I insulted his _maman_." Johnny answers in English, because Stéphane's English is, though better than Johnny's French, still in need of an upgrade.

"And I repeat: he was just trying to be nice."

Johnny stops, then, and steps aside to let a tall, dark-skinned man pass. "You're kidding."

"I didn't say anything." Stéphane is laughing at him.

"Wait, let me get – he was coming on to me? How did I not notice? Wait, he was so not, he was… he – he's got a damn nerve to assume anything about me!" Johnny finally manages.

"I didn't say anything."

"And you still didn't tell me how you know – wait, what's he… why was he there in the first place? I wondered about that earlier, he's not even living in Paris, what is he doing here?"

"He had a meeting with some new sponsors, the CSNPA wanted him to be present to represent the figure skating establishment, I believe. He told me he just wanted to check the rink and he saw you there, sitting all alone. As to how I know about all this: he's my friend, too, you know? We do talk, from time to time."

Johnny snorted. "More like, everybody shares their deep, dark, secret emo-feelings with you. Is there anyone you haven't charmed with that Swiss chocolate smile of yours?"

"No." Stéphane sounds very pleased with himself. "I don't think so."

"So if he wanted to screw around, why didn't he just say so?" Johnny wonders aloud. He doesn't really mean for Stéphane to answer.

Stéphane does anyway. "Because he doesn't want to screw around," he says.

"But you just said –"

"He – back when you were still skating, he was horridly in love with you, ange."

"Oh."

"I didn't say anything about this to you, do you hear? He never told anyone, and I doubt he would want you of all people to know, but I thought it might be good if you had the information, to stop you from trampling all over his poor heart if you two should meet again by accident. I hear you will be staying in France longer this time?"

"Hopefully," Johnny replied with a sigh. "At the rate my French is going, they'll kick me out of the program for not understanding what the hell they want from me."

"You're talented," Stéphane soothed. "It's going to go very well soon, I'm certain."

"Thanks, sweet. Look, I gotta go back now, but I appreciate the call. Are you… do you think we could meet up again? I'm –" he swallows. "I kind of find myself missing your annoying habits."

They've been friends since the Junior World Championship back in 2001. Nobody else from the guys he'd befriended dared talk to him after his back gave out on him two years later. But you couldn't bullshit Stéphane into leaving you alone; Johnny had learned that the hard way.

"It's not like I have to cross the ocean anymore to visit you," Stéphane replies cheerfully. "I have to check with my trainer when, but I would love to see you again as well, ange. Until then, keep your chin up!"

Stéphane's pretty much the only one, too, who can raise the subject of figure skating with Johnny and not get immediately burned into a little heap of fairy dust; it has its perks, to be cute and Swiss, apparently. It's all about the nationality. Well, that, and the chocolate. Stéphane can't eat his fan mail, for obvious reasons, but Johnny enjoys it whenever he can.

"Call again once we have a date," Johnny says and waits for the short bye before he hangs up. He makes his way to his classes quickly, not wanting to be late.

 _and in advance of how your raincoat was tightly cinched  
when you asked about nonviolent anti-war activity  
and before you said "Truffaut,"_

"You really don't give up, do you?"

Brian's green eyes darken. "Stéphane said to visit," he says, this time in English, and it's heavy in accent, but understandable enough. "He said to bring you chocolate and make you feel less lonely."

Johnny can't say no to that, now, can he, because, no it's not the chocolate – it isn't! It's the fact that Brian's blushing at the words. It's adorable. Nobody over the age of five should look adorable, in his opinion.

"Come on in then," he gives in. It's not like he can take the chocolate and close the door in Brian's face. That would be impolite.

"This is a nice place to live," Brian says carefully. The ceiling is a little low for him - it's just about right for Johnny - but he seems to like the pictures on the walls and the costume designs that flutter all over the apartment.

"I'm sharing with Jenny, don't open that door, it's her room, you don't wanna see it. For the time being, she's gone back home, she's from Belgium. She'll be back next week, probably…" Johnny doesn't know why he's talking, but he is, and it calms them both down to have someone blabbering about nonsense, so it doesn't matter much.

"Is she doing this too?" Brian asks, nodding at paper sheets across the floor.

"Design stuff? Yes. We're taking classes together."

"I see."

"Do you like it?" Johnny points at the same drawing Brian nodded at and smirks.

"I… I don't know about fashion," Brian stutters, and the expression on his face shows his discomfort at being asked so directly. "You know. I'm more the Matrix 'n James Bond kinda guy. Sorry."

Johnny raises an eyebrow and his smile becomes more dangerous. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Brian backtracks immediately, in French, back to his native language, more comfortable for him. "Sorry. I just don't know anything about it."

The kitchen and the living room are adjoined, not very big, but pretty enough. "Sit down," Johnny orders, and then, "want a drink? Tea, coke, coffee, water… we should have some orange juice even, I think… somewhere…"

"Coke, thank you."

Johnny brings him one, gets himself a glass of water and sits down cross-legged on the floor by the window opposite the couch. "So what do you want?"

Brian shrugs, places the little parcel he brought on the couch beside him and clutches his coke so hard Johnny has a feeling he's close to snapping the glass. He's not hot for the carpet they have on the floor, but he's not really in the mood to clean carpets right now, so he looks at Brian and says, "You can relax, you know? I'm not going to bite you."

"I never… I didn't know you were still speaking to Stéphane."

 _I didn't know you were this shy_ , Johnny replies in his head, yet he doesn't answer, just waits for Brian to go on.

"If I had known, I would have called to ask how you are. I'm sorry about not doing that, back when you were in the hospital for so long."

"And what would you have said?" Johnny mocks. "'Hi Johnny, this is Brian, you know, the guy you've seen like, maybe twice before. I just want to let you know how sorry I am that I've got one big-shot talent less to beat to the medals.' Yeah. That would have gone over really well."

Brian's face falls. "That's not what I meant," he mumbles.

"I know. I like to think you would have had more brains than to call, if you really wanted me to feel better." Johnny rubs his hands on his jeans. He hates talking about that year. It was the most horrible year of his entire life, past and yet to come.

"I'm sorry," Brian says, again.

"Shut up. You're making me feel sick."

Brian flushes. "I didn't mean – I just, I don't know what else to say!" he bursts out, frustrated.

"You can start by telling me why you're here. Why you even spoke to me, this morning? Because I'm having a hard time trying to wrap my head around _that_ , not to mention the fact that you of all people would have liked to call me at the hospital to talk to me."

"I just saw you." Brian shrugs. "I thought maybe you would remember me. You were at the ice rink!" he points out, almost accusingly. "If you hadn't been there…"

"Yes?" Johnny asks, voice crisp while the corners of his mouth turn up into a little smile.

"You're awfully hard to talk to," Brian finishes, deflating like a perforated balloon.

"Hence, no friends to speak of."

Brian nods. "I… Do you… I mean, would you, like me to kiss?" he speaks English, and it sounds like a jumble of words and half-phrases.

"You mean to ask if you may kiss me." Johnny stares at the glass in his hand, thinking. "Why?" he looks up.

"I don't know," Brian says and adds, in French, "if you're not gay, then I'm sorry."

"Halfway right," Johnny mutters, and then, "fucking French, always with the bedroom eyes."

"Is that a yes?"

Johnny nods, and he feels a little nervous when Brian gets off the couch, scrambles awkwardly towards him and sits down close next to him on the floor.

 _before your voice supernaturally soft sang  
"I aweary wait upon the shore,"  
before you suddenly stroked my thigh in the old Volvo_

"Believe it or not, it's been a while," Johnny mumbles against his lips, just before Brian kisses him, like he needs to make sure to give a warning before anything happens, before Brian expects too much, maybe a rumble of the earth beneath their bodies or fireworks going off over their heads.

 _No fireworks inside the apartment!_ , Johnny hears Jenny's scandalized order, or the way she would have sounded if she'd heard his thoughts, and he chuckles slightly into the kiss.

"What's so funny?" Brian asks, parts their lips, and it's been nothing more than that, a quick peck.

Johnny just shakes his head. He reaches up, places gentle fingers on Brian's neck and pulls him down, pulls his mouth onto his own and opens up, lets Brian explore, lets him find his way into Johnny's mouth and their tongues intertwine in sweet play.

 _when you had not yet said "Marcus Aurelius at 11:15"  
and before your white shirt on the train,  
before Pachelbel and "My Creole Belle"_

The kissing's not so bad, Johnny decides and goes to sleep to dream of sticky sheets and deadly crashes that end with his brains split open, red all over the glossy ice. It's not a new dream at all, but this one's not been there a while. Lately, it's all about the pain of missed triple axels.

He eats Brian's chocolate at three in the morning, while watching re-runs of Dallas in French, and then he makes himself scrambled eggs and watches Brokeback Mountain on the DVD he bought a few days prior. It's cold and he huddles under a blanket in need of warmth. He shouldn't be cold.

At six, he calls Stéphane.

"I'm going crazy," he says.

Stéphane yawns into the phone. "Johnny?"

"Yeah. Don't hang up, sweet. Please?"

"What's wrong?"

"I'm cold."

There's silence on the other end.

"I'm really cold, Stéphane. And I feel like I lost… something. And I made out with Brian, but I don't think I want to, really. I think he's in love with me."

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"No."

"Thank you."

"What do I do?"

"About the cold? You get a hot-water bottle. About Brian? You figure out if you want to kiss him or not."

"I feel horrible."

"Poor Johnny," Stéphane says and then, "it's six in the morning, ange, and you know I love you like nobody else in the world, but if I don't get my sleep, I'm going to be dead cranky later and I have practice early –"

"I know, I know. I'm sorry for waking you up."

"Don't be. Call any time. If there's anything else –"

"No. Go back to sleep. Thank you for listening."

Johnny gets that hot-water bottle, and it helps, a lot, and also, the chocolate.

 _and before your lips were so cool under that street-lamp  
and before Buddy Holly in Vermont on the sofa  
and Yeats in the library lounge,_

He feels guilty as hell when their meetings become a regular occurrence, when Brian starts picking him up from classes, extended vacation, he says when Johnny asks if he doesn't need to get back to Poitiers soon, and he can practice in Paris anyway, as long as he's staying here.

Brian doesn't realize that Johnny wants him to fucking leave. Johnny can't concentrate when all he can think about is Brian's tongue in his mouth and on his neck, on his nipples.

They go to eat dinner now, and breakfast, sometimes, when Johnny has classes in the evening. Brian picks him up and buys – Johnny doesn't want him to pay, damnit, he hates it, he fucking could gouge Brian's eyes out for insisting on paying every damn fucking time – and then he drives Johnny home and they kiss some more and Johnny doesn't want to lead him on, he really doesn't, but Brian makes it so damn easy.

And then he feels guilty again and it's all, "I don't want to see you today," because Johnny's blunt, has always been, and he never, ever cares about the hurt light in Brian's eyes at the cutting edge in the words.

It simply feels like another knife in his gut. It doesn't hurt, because he's hurting all the time.

"I bought you the top you were looking at," Brian then says, halfway up the stairs and looking at him, just looking at him, all soft and vulnerable, and Johnny can't. He just can't, he feels like he has trouble breathing because why the fuck does Brian always notice where his eyes are, however can he know what Johnny finds nice and what he hates on first glance?

And why, why can't he ever see, when he's all perceptive as he appears, that Johnny does not want him around?

"Fuck you," Johnny says and then, "I don't want you to buy me things." He closes the door in Brian's face, like he should have done that first time when Brian came to visit him, and he's lying, of course, he wants Brian to buy him the world, but he doesn't know what to think anymore, and what's one more lie, on top of a house of lying cards?

 _prior to your denim cutoffs on the porch,  
prior to my notes and your notes  
and before your name became a pulsing star_

They have sex on the couch, not really, just rubbing up against each other, hot breath and pulse racing and shoving and a gnawing at each other's mouths and Brian's hand in Johnny's boxers, stroking him quick and hard. Johnny rocks into him, harshly, into his palm, and bites his shoulder, muscles strong and taut from work-outs.

"I love you," Brian says, when Johnny lays on top of him, and they're both out of breath and finished, and Johnny's brow is sweaty and Brian's hand draws circles on Johnny's back, under his shirt that they didn't quite manage to get off.

It's been barely two weeks. Three years. Maybe more. Who knows? Maybe Stéphane does. Johnny thinks to ask, whether Stéphane was right, whether Brian was really worried, back three years ago.

"I don't know," he just says with a sigh and puts his head on Brian's collarbone and closes his eyes. "Why do you know?"

"I just do." Brian kisses his swollen mouth, gently, licks at the places he bit earlier and pulls Johnny closer, crushes him in the hug, like he never wants to let go.

Jenny comes home. Everything changes. Johnny doesn't think he does, but he goes with it anyway. They move to the bedroom. Later, at any rate.

They make love that night, because Johnny thinks it's the nice thing to do, to give Brian this, after all, Brian loves him. Johnny has a funny feeling in his stomach, a flip upside down, whenever he thinks of it, and he has thought of it a lot, in the past few hours. Nonstop, actually, if he was honest, but he's hardly what people would call honest these days.

Brian opens him slowly, carefully, gets him mountain high before letting him crash back rock-bottom, gets him up again by licking at his cock and taking him deep into his mouth, and then, finally, he enters Johnny, like he needs to be all lovely about it, diligent and patient and so gentle that Johnny can't breathe, again, and that happens a lot to him, it seems, around Brian.

There's the nervous flutter in his stomach again, when Brian rocks into him, taking his lower lip into his mouth to kiss it.

"I don't know," Johnny says afterwards, eyes open, staring into the darkness unblinking.

"I know," Brian says, and he sounds a little bit desperate, but a little bit understanding too, and he holds Johnny close and Johnny's not cold that night.

 _  
before all this,  
oh, safer and smoother and smaller was my heart._

 

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Poem by Miriam Waddington**

_There used to be someone to whom I could say do you  
love me and be sure the answer would be yes; there used to be someone to_

Johnny stops seeing Brian a good two and a half months into the relationship that is none. There is no reason, really, except that he can't take it, the swirl in his stomach that tastes like guilt on his tongue. Brian says 'I love you' like it's easy, like it's... there. Like it shouldn't be so hard, just a press of the tongue to the roof of your mouth.

He stops taking his calls, shutting the cell the moment he sees Brian's name. He sends Jenny to open the door - and she does, looks at him pityingly, but she does, good girl she is, taking Brian's chocolates and roses and all the presents he sends. Brian never oversteps the line. He stays polite, sends notes with everything he brings, but he never crosses the threshold when he isn't invited.

Johnny hates that he comes, still, as one week passes, then another one, and he can't quite bring himself to hate it so much that he'd go out there and snap it in Brian's face. It's a dangerous torrent, to let himself do that, and Johnny doesn't want love, or hate, he just wants moderate and boring, and most of all, calm. He doesn't need passion. Passion's in his work, the new collection, working on colors and cuts and the drawings hanging from the walls in his room.

"You're a little bit pathetic," Jenny tells him one evening when they're sitting on the sofa, eating chocolate chip ice cream and watching 'Ten Things I hate About You'.

"I know," Johnny replies, and they leave it at that.

 _whom I could telephone and be sure when the operator  
said do you accept the charges the answer would always be yes;_

Brian drops by with the regularity of a machine, every second day. He knocks, waits for Jenny to meet him up front, and Johnny hears it from his room, the one with the almost-shut door, where just a single beam of light falls into the darker hallway.

He hears Jenny say, "Hello, Brian, how are you?" and Brian reply, "I'd be better if he'd come to talk to me in person." Brian's never taken much bullshit from anyone, Johnny realizes every time, and every time anew, like it's news.

"He isn't home," Jenny then lies, as always, and Brian - probably - smiles his charming smile, shrugs and hands her whatever he's thought of bringing today. "Give those to him, then, when he comes back?"

He's reliable that way, Brian, he's... too much, Johnny decides, he's a fucking moron if he thinks this will get him anywhere, anytime soon, and when he hears the entrance door shut, he yells, "Keep whatever he brought." And he doesn't care one bit that the walls in this building are paper-thin and Brian probably heard him in the staircase.

 _but now there is no one to ask no one to telephone from the  
strangeness of cities in the lateness of nightness now there  
is no-one always now no-one no someone no never at all._

Brian stops visiting sometime mid-September. It's taken him long enough to get the hint, Johnny thinks with grim despair, and then, pleasure, because there won't be any evening-visits anymore, none, nothing, and there won't be phone calls and flowers and none of those fancy dinners either.

Johnny hates them all, hates them with a passion, and fury rises in his throat because it's Brian's fault, it's all Brian's fault; Johnny never wanted to hate anything in his life. But his teachers are pleased and he channels, he channels as well as he can, and it seems to work, because everyone loves his new plans, his new layouts, his new imagination that is all hate and all passion.

Stéphane visits then, just for a weekend, drops by almost unannounced except for a text message on Johnny's cell phone that lies at home, forgotten, because who's to call?

"I've missed you," is the first thing he says and Johnny stares at him, stares at the beautiful line of his mouth and his body, lean and slender and completely breath-taking and asks, "Why, do you think, can't I fall in love with you?"

Stéphane sits down on the couch and pulls Johnny close, pulls his head on his lap and Jenny leaves quietly.

"Do you want me to stay?" Stéphane asks, and Johnny hates to do this to him, because Stéphane's a figure skater, and he has responsibilities and training and maybe even competitions, soon, and Johnny feels so miserable in that moment, so alone that he says "Yes!", because he wants Stéphane to miss all those things, for years, like he has, and Johnny feels like his heart breaks all over for not being able to ever skate again.

 _Can you imagine what it is like to live in a world where  
there is no-one now always no no-one and never some some-_

September passes, and so does October, and there is no sign from Brian; Stéphane visits more than ever, even though he probably can't spare the time. "It's just France," he tends to tease and kiss Johnny's forehead and nose, "It's not across the sea, it's not America!" but Johnny can see that every time gets harder, every time he comes, he looks more worn, exhausted from flights or train rides.

"It's fucking unfair of you to do this to him," Jenny corners him one evening across spaghetti with tomato sauce, all they can afford for the next week or so. The budget's always tight, and Johnny thinks of Brian and dinners and light restaurants and sparkling glasses of champagne exchanged.

"What are you talking about," Johnny asks, mouth full, not bothering to look up from his plate.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," Jenny berates. "He comes out almost every weekend, and you know damn well that he can't afford it."

"He has the money," Johnny growls.

"I'm not talking about the money. Johnny, he can't -"

"Shut up, okay?" Johnny breaks, shouts, pushes his plate off the table so that it shatters on the ground. Tomato sauce goes flying, flying, like blood splatters across the carpet and the walls, across his white, white shirt, and he feels like she's stabbed him in the stomach, sharp knife pain.

"It's not fair," Jenny mutters, scowling at him unafraid.

"I'm sorry," Johnny says softly, takes her in his arms, because he didn't mean to, he didn't mean to get so angry, but he misses Brian and he misses the soft panting above him as they kissed and made love in the darkness of his room, hands over his thighs and calves and back and neck, warm fingers, callused and yet so soft.

It's fine really, he knows, and she makes a joke about getting him paper plates, and she is not scared, not a bit, not a second, except maybe for a flicker in her eye when he bows down to pick up the shards with bare hands.

 _one to ask do you love me and be sure the answer would  
always be yes? I live in a world where only the billboards are  
always: they're twenty feet tall and they circle the city they_

"I'm sorry," Johnny says into the phone. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to -"

"It's okay," Stéphane replies, just as calm, but with a little more love, maybe, more than he deserves in any case, and Johnny knows that. Knows it far too well. "I - do you want me to -"

"No." Johnny clenches his hand over his cover of his bed and it almost rips between his fingers, his fingers that were so perfect when he skated, everyone told him so, everyone, how graceful and beautiful and how could he ever think he'd be able to do anything but skate, ever? Fashion's fun and he's getting better, so much better, but his heart's still bleeding for the ice, red on whitish glitter.

"Johnny, if there is anything -"

"Yes," Johnny says and bites his lip so hard the pain sends him reeling. He doesn't need shards, foolish, naive little Jenny. He doesn't need anything but himself to hurt, insides melting in a crucible. "I want to know about Brian."

Stéphane's breath hitches, and then he tells Johnny about Brian.

 _coax and caress me they heat me and cool me they promise and  
plead me with colour and comfort: you can get to sleep with me_

Snow's everywhere in Poitiers. It's winter, after all, December. Snow's a little bit like ice, but very different, and Johnny has always avoided snow, always, but he feels like it's okay now, to watch it melt on his hand, little flakes becoming runny water that drops off his hand, drop, drop, drop.

The station is bigger than Johnny'd imagined - it's taken him barely four hours to get here by train. It makes him wonder if Brian was living in Paris all this time when he was courting, or if he travelled up and down - it doesn't matter, in the end, he decides. Brian'd only do whatever it is Brian wants, and it's not like Johnny has any say in that.

"Johnny," Brian calls out. Awe, and Johnny wants to hit him right then right there, because it's not like Brian didn't _know_ Johnny was coming.

"Yes," he says sharply.

Brian stops in mid-step, then slows and approaches more carefully. He seems embarrassed. For a moment, they stand there, watching each other through the other's eyes, then Brian starts another forward motion and has Johnny embraced in a hug that is huge and warm and all kinds of soft, feather jackets and the smell of sharp wind in his nose.

"I missed you," Brian says. "I thought - I didn't - I didn't think you'd really come."

Johnny didn't know he'd come, truly, but Stéphane talked him 'round. He owed it, Johnny thinks, and that's the only reason he's here. "I'm here," he repeats smoothly, challenging Brian to respond.

Brian catches himself just in time, almost like it's anticipated and says instead, "Let me take you home."

Johnny hates him, just for that.

 _tonight (the me being ovaltine) but who wants to get to sleep  
with a cup of ovaltine what kind of sleep is that for some_

They do it like they always do, first fast and hard and forgetting to breathe, and later, when Johnny's harsh panting covers the sounds of the silence it's slow and just fingers and easy sliding of limbs against limbs, skin slippery from sweat and slick mouths kissing, eating into each other, hungry from so long apart.

Brian licks his chin softly, his ear, his neck, traces the path over and over with his fingers and says nothing, because he's smarter than that, now. He just sighs and kisses Johnny, slow, deep, moving inside him like a tick-tick-tick of a clock, so damn reliable and predictable and always, always the same, always the same, and it drives Johnny crazy.

In a good way.

Then Brian comes inside him, with a sharp little gasp and a moan that sounds like 'Johnny' on his lips, desperate and wanting and suffocating, asking too much, far too much, and Johnny thinks of Brian's skates, standing in some corner, forgotten, and almost starts to cry for his loss, because it hurts too much.

He catches Brian's mouth, quickly, before he can think, forgets in the taste that is love, or at least, supposed to be love, and it kind of feels better, smoother, quicker, to finish it now, with a guttural little groan that echoes in the room worse than his earlier panting did.

Brian stays, stays like he always does, and doesn't move, doesn't budge a single inch, no matter how much Johnny wants him to. He just leans in and kisses, again, just a short touch of his lips against Johnny's lips, no trouble at all. It speaks of so much tenderness that it's unbearable, in that second.

Johnny pushes Brian away and runs for the edge of the bed, miles and miles away. Brian's faster. He catches his wrist, delicate in his firm grip, so easily breakable, like a birdling baby, fresh from the nest. "Don't," he says - no praying, no pleading, one single word, just the right intonation, and when did Brian learn how to read Johnny like this, how did he pick up on just the right tone of voice, just the right words to make Johnny come back?

"I missed you," Johnny then says, with his back to Brian and his wrist still in his hand, trapped, unable to cry.

He doesn't mean Brian, or he does, but not only. He misses everything about this, the closeness, the firmness, the inevitable ending, the breaking of hearts that will follow, surely must follow, because he lost his heart once, and it's not like he's gotten it back yet, at all.

Instead, he stares at the skates in the corner and laughs. No tears fall.

 _one who used to have someone to ask do you love me and  
be sure that the answer would always be yes?_

~*~


End file.
